2000.02.11 10:01
Re: shock
You bring up some good historical examples of 'architectural shock' with Boullée and Ledoux--many of Boullée's designs are definitely of a shocking scale and magnitude, and Ledoux often architecturally manifests the shock of revolution within architecture (the French Revolution played a key role in his mature work).
2001.12.23 12:00
shock in Philadelphia
"In 1750, two days before Christmas, Benjamin Franklin mistakenly attached the apparatus he used for his lightning experiments to himself instead of to his intended victim, a turkey. The jolt knocked him to the floor. We don't know how many turkeys Franklin electrocuted and cooked in his experiments, but he did declare that, when prepared by this method, they were "uncommonly tender." He wrote in his notebook that it took a lot more voltage to kill a turkey than a chicken."
from: Janice L. Booker, Philly Firsts (Philadelphia: Camino Books, 1999), p. 108.
2002.02.08 16:47
Cuban's fox(y shock?)
Here's a bit of a shock I want to share. I've read How Architecture Got Its Hump over the last Wednesday to Wednesday week, and in chapter 5, the last chapter, I was shocked to read on page 152:
"Are Gehry and Rauschenburg's binoculars in Los Angeles the upturned result of sculpture freed from a toothpaste image of softness? Just what have these installations got to do with architecture's own program?"
I'm thinking, what a shocking mistake, and what a disgrace for both the author, Roger Connah, and the editor at MIT Press. The binoculars are not Rauschenberg's, and I won't even bother to write the name of the binocular's correct artistic father. Isn't such a printed mistake from the most respected architectural editor of books something to be concerned about? Is it actually true that no one really reads these kind of architecture theory category books that for the most part are just words with very few images?
For a moment there, I was just in the mood to write How Architecture Got Its Lacunae, and every line in the book was going to be a big, fat, fucking mistake! Oh, I'm suddenly so overwhelmed.
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2003.02.13 10:25
mixing things up
I wish museums mixed things up more. For example, I'd like to see Poons in a French period room, or Duchamp in a Ladies Room. Brancusi next to armor, why not? Museum as future-shock, sort of. Pick your destiny.
Hold me! Thrill me! Kiss me! You're my pride and joy, etc. Now rearrange me.
   
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2004.01.04 13:44
Re: Bam, Venice
Ah, a Quondam Bam.
Wonder if any 3D computer models will also be 'built' of the Citadel during the reenactment process. They might make for good fund-raising courtesy items, or maybe virtual places for every-size-fits-no-one immersion.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Go figure [in 3D].
Earthquake, the original culture shock
2005.07.07
...Alas, Johnson is still in surprise shock since late January, i.e., he's for the most part speechless, which is a welcome change, even for himself. He never imagined such a thing as the Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club that he is now a part of it, albeit he now has so, so much to really learn. Funny though, he's still "dying" to know what other architects will be joining the club. Whenever he names one of his quondam architecture "friends," the rest of the club just shake their heads "No" and say, "You still shouldn't throw stones." .
2007.03.11 13:54
...and speaking of random tangents
So there I was, sometime in the January summer of 1987, walking through the deserted Capitol Building. The new Capitol was almost ready, but they still have to straighten the giant slanting flagpole erected the day before. Went through both Houses, and even sat in the Monarch's chair. And then, while looking at all the Prime Minister portraits hanging in the Central Hall, I leaned against this vitrine back in the corner. So what's this big, old document? "Hey guys, get a load of this. It's the Magna Carta!"
Australia's a trip.
Is the Athenaeum an unacknowledged(?) precursor of Deconstructionist architecture? Walked through every inch of that place sometime the middle of July summer of 1978. It was a Friday, construction almost done, and the place was deserted. Very attractive building. Gorgeous blue sky day.
Guess who wrote "Bizarre experiments are now a commonplace of scientific research."
[And speaking of commonplace bizarre experiments:]
"Only if virtual evolution can be used to explore a space rich enough so that all the possibilities cannot be considered in advance by the designer, only if what results shocks or at least surprises, can genetic algorithms be considered useful visualization tools."
--de Landa
You know, if a client came to me an asked for a rich space that would shock or at least surprise them, I certainly wouldn't need a genetic algorithm to accomplish the task.
Do you think I should donate my genetic code to science? I mean, what if they find it's totally random and completely tangential?!?
2008.03.09 15:23
The Discreet HARM of The Bourgeosie...
Shock the architects themselves; that's where the real creative fun is. An over-flowing fount of inspirations, even.
2008.03.09 15:49
The Discreet HARM of The Bourgeosie...
struggle = yawn, then snooze
easy = shock
2008.03.09 16:26
The Discreet HARM of The Bourgeosie...
No, seriously, a struggle results in feeling tired, where as, something spontaneous and quick, wakes you up.
2008.03.09 16:34
The Discreet HARM of The Bourgeosie...
Virtually all architects are highly proficient at generating sticker-shock architecture.
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